Man Returns From Birthday Dinner To Loss Of Home, Dogs From Fire

TUCSON, AZ – It’s Saturday night and Bradley Crane is headed home from Nevada Smith’s Steakhouse on Miracle Mile in Tucson. He’d been there celebrating his 49th birthday with his parents.

Pulling up, he sees his home surrounded by fire engines and emergency vehicles, their cherry red lights filling the night.

He jumps out of his pickup and runs to a firefighter.

“That’s my home,” he says. “Where are my dogs?”

The firefighter looks at him saying, simply: “I’m sorry.”

He'd been gone about one hour.

Julie Crane says that her son is devastated.

“He could be barely talk,” she says, referring to the call she and her husband got as they drove home from the birthday dinner. “He said there’d been a fire. Of the dogs, he told us, ‘they’re gone.’

“We went there as fast as we could.”

Julie says it was a “horrible sight. One of the dogs was right there, covered with a blanket. There was just so much damage. It was his home. He was trying to explain what happened. So much of his life had gone up in flames.

“No matter how old you get, no matter how old they get, parents want to protect their children and sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Things have been going so well for him and now this.”

Speaking quietly, sometimes through some tears, Julie goes into details about the good things in his life.

“He’s really settled into his life and things have been going smoothly,” she says.

Following a series of jobs in sales, Brad had been a truck driver for several years making trips across the country.

“One night last winter, it was a really horrible winter, and he calls me from the parking lot of a Walmart in Indiana,” Julie says. “He was staying in the lot overnight, getting some rest, and there was snow and ice everywhere.

“‘How does anyone live like this?’ he asked me.”

Julie is from Michigan.

“I told him it’s something some people can do but I understand that, being from Arizona, it wasn’t for him,” she says.

It wasn’t for him.

“He got a job for CTI Trucking as a dispatcher,” she says. “Around the same time, he got the house in the Flowing Wells area.

“It’s not a huge house,” Julie says. “Two bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and kitchen. But it was his. His and the dogs.”

There was Tucson, a four-year-old redtick hound, and Daisy, a two-and-a-half-year-old blue heeler.

“He’s never been married,” Julie says. “These dogs were his children in so many ways. He loved them, took care of them, did everything he could to protect the, give them a good life.

“They were such sweet dogs who were great together.”

Julie says that there’s many challenges facing Brad in the days and weeks ahead.

“We’re still waiting to hear from the city and the fire department about what caused the fire,” she says. “There’s so much damage. He can’t live there now and we just don’t know if he’ll be able to move back in.

“There’s smoke damage everywhere, the kitchen looks like it will have to be gutted. It just such a mess.”

While they wait, Brad is staying with his parents.

“He’s such a loving, caring kid,” she says. “I know that I’m his mother but he has a great circle of friends because he’s always there for them and they are there for him.

“They really are wonderful. He’s been friends with some of them since they were in high school. He’s 49 now.”

In addition to looking after him emotionally, they are helping him financially. It’s not known how much he will need but they want to make sure that he has it.

His sister, Diane, has set up a GoFundMe page that had already raised more than $2,000 by Sunday evening. They are looking to raise $20,000.

“The next week is going to be extremely difficult as he goes through the difficult task of trying to salvage what he can and rebuild his life,” she says.

Julie says that her son will also seek out counseling and is lucky to work for a supportive company.

“They have been so great, she says. “He called his boss right away and he told Brad to take the time he needs. His job’s not going anywhere.

“He’s got some tough days ahead but we are a family of faith and we will get through this.”

Julie says that one of the hardest parts is going to be getting over the deaths of Tucson and Daisy.

“There’s a pet cemetery that came and took care of removing them. They’ll cremate them together so these dogs who really loved each other will be together forever.

“Waiting at the end of the rainbow bridge.”

Photo of Daisy and Tucson taken on New Year's courtesy Diane Crane DeLeon.